Evaluation

Physical design
A strong urban form has been created at Crown Street through a masterplan which relies on traditional built form elements of the local area.  The concept of a liveable neighbourhood underpins the masterplan, ensuring well placed community facilities and a high quality public realm.  The scheme benefits from a scale which is consistent with its wider context and built heritage, legible street patterns and active frontages with clearly defined boundaries between public and private space.

A recognisable identity has been developed at Crown Street through the mix of uses and overall design.  The tenement form, supplemented by town houses and terraces, provides an appropriate townscape and variation in building scale.  Overall, the townscape strength of the site lies in the unity and simplicity of the building layout, form and façade treatment.  Finishing materials in colours and textures associated with tenements have been used, and storey heights specified in development briefs have been adhered to.

While some building designs are of extremely high quality, this is not consistent across the scheme. The building materials used for developments vary throughout the neighbourhood, and some are likely to require a maintenance programme in the future to avoid an overall decline of the physical environment. Similarly, while the styles are diverse, at points they have little to draw them together and create unity across the neighbourhood. This can have a negative impact on the overall legibility of the area.

Crown Street is designed to be pedestrian-friendly with all forms of movement within the neighbourhood catered for.  Parking is located in the centre of wide avenues, between four-storey perimeter blocks.  A clear and logical hierarchy of open space has been created in the area, in contrast to the undefined open space of the previous tower blocks development.

Community objectives
The housing mix in both tenure and form has been designed to attract residents from a wide range of economic backgrounds, with a target set of 25% social housing. Efforts have also been made to ensure that local residents from the area and those with historic or family links with Gorbals have been provided with affordable housing in the neighbourhood.  Social housing in the area is consolidated within specific blocks, rather then being distributed evenly throughout the development. This was done so that the homes can be serviced with ease. While the design quality of social housing in the neighbourhood is indistinguishable from private developments, a dispersed approach may be preferable.

The project specifically aimed to attract families, and the design of ground floor maisonettes with doors at street level and private gardens opening on to central courtyards was conceived and cemented in the design brief for this very purpose.  This has been achieved in the early developments, but has not featured so prominently in the latter phases.

Improved safety levels in an area traditionally perceived to have high levels of crime has been a very positive aspect of the scheme. The introduction of a local police station and dedicated Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs), along with the high levels of natural surveillance afforded by the masterplan design, has helped to address a fear of crime in the neighbourhood. A fence around part of the site, which creates an undesirable containment when not placed in context, prevents the neighbourhood from being used as a direct route from the nearby football stadium to the city centre following matches. This has reduced petty crime and vandalism levels in the area.

Process
Partly as a consequence of the phased nature of the development and its surrounds, and the fact that Laurieston Road to the west is a dual carriageway, Crown Street currently appears rather isolated from the wider area in terms of vehicular and, to a lesser extent, pedestrian access.  The original masterplan intended the retention the existing road connections to provide permeability through the site, but concerns regarding 'rat runs' through the area, raised during consultation, resulted in a more contained design. This containment effectively disconnects the high street environment of Crown Street from the surrounding area so that the businesses are able to serve only the local residents since they do not benefit from passing trade.